On the Bill

The Lao Tizer Band will perform at the Friday Afternoon Club Concert Series at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, July 6, at Millenium Harvest House Hotel, 1345 28th St., Boulder, 303-443-3850.

It's been a few months since jazz pianist (and Boulder native) Lao Tizer's second full length CD, Diversify, hit the shelves, and Tizer is getting ready for a big week. The second single from the album, a compressed version of the title track in fact, is teed up for release to jazz and smooth-jazz format radio stations around the country, and Tizer and his management team are hopeful that the alternately anthemic and breezy single will land Tizer and his band a heavy rotation.

"Radio is pretty lame wherever you go," says Tizer, "but in this genre it's especially difficult. Smooth-jazz radio had a great, long run, just about 20 years, but a lot of people think the format is a little spent. It's just become so formulaic and so predictable; there's not enough new ideas and fresh music going into it. The thing is, as my manager says, there's a real desire for the 'next big thing.'"

Tizer released the CD's second track to the radio, the brash, urban-nightlife vibe of "Uptown," but its impact was... muted.

"It did OK, not really as well as we might have hoped," he conceded. "The thing is, by going with 'Diversify,' which is a real stylistic stretch for the format, I think we're making a statement about us and what the format could be."

Tizer mixes enthusiasm with the single-mindedness of a player who is in full control of what he's doing. He has managed most of his own business and recording affairs for the past decade, and believes, in his heart, that smooth jazz, the more pop and commercially palatable cousin to the straight-ahead stuff, can have depth, accessibility and growth.

And it wouldn't be a stretch to believe it, listening to this record. From the reflective melancholy of "A Hui Hou," the rumbling left-hand bassline anchoring the lead-off "A Night In The City," and the elegiac harmony poem of "Ella's First Light," Tizer mixes a deft hand at compositional clarity with a robust technique, all wrapped in a vigor of a smart and effective band setting. Smooth jazz with more than a little octane.

But it was a while in coming — the CD follows predecessor Golden Soul by six years, the previous release having just grazed the smooth-jazz radio limelight. Tizer spent the interim gigging around southern California, teaching himself the music business and hitting the road for festival season.

"It was really just about to break through, but we had run out of money to promote it. Still, it was an accomplishment for us — we managed to tour for several years off it, and we managed to sell a lot of copies at gigs."

Was it tough being out of the studio for so long?

"It was what it was. Looking back, yeah, I think I would have wanted to keep a higher profile, but we were working, playing gigs. We definitely made the best of it."

Tizer's musical ambition extends back to his Boulder days — living with his parents just off 19th and Balsam. (He is the son of Marc "Yo" Tizer, the ultramarathoner and founder of the controversial Divine Madness spiritualist/running group — "I think he's in Mexico someplace," Tizer says. "I haven't talked to him in a long time.") The young keyboardist used to take his rig downtown and busk for quarters.

"Yeah, I did my first gig on the Pearl Street Mall, with my keyboard and an amp, playing for contributions. Or, uh... tips. Saved them up to pay back my parents for the equipment. People would come up to me and compliment me and ask me if I had any tapes for sale. So I started making some."

Tizer moved to the L.A. area just after graduating from Boulder High School, and eventually found his way to lessons with Terry Trotter, the estimable California jazz pianist, building on influences like Lyle Mays, Chuck Leavell, Wynton Kelly, Bruce Hornsby and, as he describes with awed reverence, Vladimir Horowitz.

"I didn't really get into jazz until I met Terry. I was just concentrating on writing and playing my own music, but working with Terry brought it up to a whole new level, learning how to play over changes and really strengthening my compositional side.

"And that's the thing — when I listen to someone like Pat Metheny, he's an incredible player, but the compositions are also so good. To me, that's the ultimate objective.... being a good player and a good writer."

And coming back to Boulder?

"I can't wait. A lot of my friends from Boulder High also went to CU, and a few are still around. It's a special place, definitely. I hope I can start coming back there with the band more often."

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